Pope Francis has never loved the grape productions of the residence of Castel Gandolfo, appreciated instead by his predecessor Joseph Ratzinger. Despite this, Bergoglio had recently made a Solomonic decision: to discuss many screws to make room for a hotel for migrants …
He had boasted and cleared her from the stones and had planted screws there. ” So the Canticle of Canticles; The whole Bible is full of vineyards which are the people of God and God himself who, like the vineyard, cares it. The Christ in the Gospel assigns to wine, which is the result of the vine and work of man, the sanction of the new and eternal alliance “paid for you and for all in remission of sins”. Except that where Pope Bergoglio has passed, not even a ber does not grow anymore. That of the vineyard of the Argentine pontiff is a story of restrictions, second thoughts, indecisions that illustrates how Francesco in his 12 years of kingdom, often in the administration of things and people in the Vatican has been subject to mood changes.
There are no layoffs in trunk, just as the “motu proprio” are not counted to change offices and contradictory orders in the management of even small things, but of very high symbolic value, such as the vineyards. The result is the two billion and passes of euros of debts that Pietro’s successor has left Leone XIV as a legacy.
There is no product on the earth that is a symbol of the sacred like wine. So where should a vineyard be if not on the Pope’s farm? Except that Jorge Mario Bergoglio, who even at the table had some confidence with the wine, had no patience – as recommended by the Bible – and he nicked the verse who says: “He waited for him to produce grapes, but it produced wild grapes”. Except that Francesco did not even come to see wild grapes: he got tired before. This story is told halfway through the splendid papal farm of Castel Gandolfo to about fifty kilometers from the capital; They are 50 hectares of vegetable gardens, of pastures, of olive groves also occupied by the Papal Palace, by two other villas and the magnificent gardens.
Bergoglio never wanted to set foot – the first pope in six centuries – And he made sure that they became museums, that the parks were open to the public – the visits can be booked – and the farm produced for the Vatican Annona with the possibility of the employees of the Holy See of making online shopping, fruit, cheeses and meat of the pontiff. And the vineyard? There was a half hectare planted in Cesanese d’Affile, red berry, and Vermentino, white berry, which gave a few bottles, but sufficient for the summer canteen of Joseph Ratzinger. Benedict XVI loved that vineyard very much and during his stays in Castel Gandolfo he walked among the rows reciting the breviary, reading and taking care of his “vineyard of the Lord”.
But since 2016 that cultivation was abandoned. In 2020 Francesco called order to uproot it and, died Ratzinger, it was thought to asphalt that field now lifeless and, at first, to transform it into a parking lot. In the end they prevailed the magnificent roses flower beds. Except for Francesco he still thought about it. Maybe he had warned the need to “plant screws” to meet sacred writing? Ah know.
In the meantime, he had made the revolution at the top of those who command the pontifical villas – in addition to the Apostolic Palace, Villa Barberini, the sources of Palazzolo and the central of Lake Castel Gandolfo – which are under the governor, now in the hands of Sister Raffaella Petrini, and the direction of the Vatican Museums. Just the arrival of a manager Andrea Tamburelli, a former manager in the Peroni beer company, as director of the villas had coincided with the explanatory of the Ratzinger vineyard. But at the end of 2023 Bergoglio summoned both Tamburelli and Luciano Cecchetti. To launch the Pope’s wine project of the Castel Gandolfo farm. One of the most famous oenologists in the world was consulted with the task of designing a red wine that could face the tastes of the pontiff and two other wines a white and a red blend that could become an emblem of the papal farm and, why not?, even a minimum business.
The winemaker – is one of those who detach millionaire advice and who instead for Bergoglio had decided to lend his work for free – knowing that the Argentine Pope loved Malbec a lot, he first thought of that grape variety that in Mendoza, in the center of the South American country, gives extraordinary results. Then they suggested that Bergoglio tasted the Cabernet Franc of a Lazio cellar: Colle Picchioni, who uses him for his rosé and then in a classic Bordeaux grapes with Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. So the choice of the Pope’s oenologist was directed towards those vineyards, yet the pontiff wanted there to be other grapes to also give the “sense of community” in the field.
Cabernet Franc were replanted that they would have given the Pope’s wine on the next harvest, in the next harvest, Perhaps competing to a French denomination in Vaucuse, the Chateneuf du Pape. Different white grapes have also been placed for a “pale wine” and other red berry species to also produce an grape bottle: a sort of “supervastic” as is done in Tuscany by putting various grapes together with the Supertuscan! These vineyards would go into production in a couple of years. Instead … a few weeks before the hospitalization to Gemelli, the Pope convened the winemaker and communicated to him: I decided to explain all the screws, that field serves to cultivate the reception. Where tractors moved carefully, today Bulldozer and Betoniere are in action. The fact is that when Francesco had decided to replace the vineyard, in the meantime he had Silorato Don Paolo Niccolini, called Mangiafuoco, the powerful estate of the Vatican Museums fired at the beginning of 2024 and replaced with Don Fabio Baggio, an expert in migration and migrants, coming from the dicastery on integral human development. Don Baggio had presented the Borgo Laudato project in great pomp. “La Vigna” Words of the neo -irector “represents a new model of sustainability”.
They therefore put the laudato vineyard to live with Barbatelle of the cooperative nurseries of Rauscedo, province of Pordenone, To obtain a blend that symbolizes “communion in diversity”. There is no trace of all this. Instead of the vines, a hotel for migrants is rising. It is a structure of a thousand square meters that is built next to the stables of the papal farm with a roof equipped with solar panels, a large concrete square and all annexed and connected, from the gym to the meeting rooms. The vineyard of Pope Francis could not be green yet GMO, but it had to be an NGO!
